Female bosses 10% more likely to be fired than men from publicly owned companies

Women chief executives are at a greater risk of being fired than their male contemporaries, research has shown despite their number being much smaller than their counterparts.

Consultancy group Strategy&, which studied 2,500 of the largest public companies found that over the last decade fewer than three in 10 male chief executives were ousted from their position while two fifths of female bosses were forced out.

The researchers claim the higher rate of sackings among female CEO’s was in part explained by companies feeling pressured into making higher risk appointments.

Lean in: Sheryl Sandberg Facebook's chief operating office, and one of the most powerful women in business according to Fortune, has, thus far, managed to avoid the sack

Per-Ola Karlsson, co-author of the study said some firms had made appointments on the ‘benefit of the doubt’ because of cultural and political pressures in some countries.

He said companies were often too keen to appoint a female candidate to a top role – so much so that they were prepared to make a bolder choice, which stood a higher chance of going wrong.

‘Companies may, on balance, take on a bit more risk because they do want to have a woman chief executive, and in some cases that risk was real,’ Mr Karlsson said.

The study comes less than six months after the European Parliament backed proposals that would force companies within the European Union to ensure that at least 40 per cent of their boardroom members are women.

The German government under Angela Merkel is already set to introduce legislation that will require companies to give 30 per cent of their non-executive board seats to women from 2016.

Female boardroom quotas have also regularly been discussed by the coalition government since it came to power in 2010 with the prime Minister and Business Secretary Vince Cable keen advocates.

A secondary explanation for the higher proportion of women who left abruptly was that boardroom culture has remained overwhelmingly male.

‘From having spoken with many women in senior places, it is a difficult environment to work in, and not everyone is invariably supportive,’ he said.

Women made up only 3 per cent of the new chief executive appointments at the companies in the study in 2013, down from 4.2 per cent in the previous year.

But Strategy& forecasts that changing social pressures, and the increasing presence of women in higher education and senior business roles will result in one-third of incoming chief executives being female in 2040.

High-profile female casualties in recent memory have included Carol Bartz who was dismissed as chief executive of Yahoo in 2011 following investor dissatisfaction over the performance of the internet group.

Anne Lauvergeon, was also replaced as head of French nuclear champion Areva after the French government strengthened its hold on the group’s management.